Asia

2010

New York, December 28,
2010--The death of Sun Hongjie, a senior reporter at the Northern Xinjiang Morning Post, must be
fully investigated by regional authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
Region and by central authorities in Beijing, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said today. Sun died in a hospital in Kuitun today, 10 days after being
beaten by several men at a construction site, international news reports said.

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New York, December 22, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the vicious beating of reporter Sun Hongjie and doubts official reports that the attack occurred because of an online dispute with a social media acquaintance. Sun, a reporter for the Northern Xinjiang Morning Post (known locally at the Beijiang Morning Post) was attacked by a group of six people after he had gone to meet a source at a construction site in the small city of Kuitin on Saturday night, according to international news reports. He was discovered at the site on Sunday morning. The state news agency, Xinhua, has reported that he is brain-dead.

The news headlines in the last few weeks have been full of
stories of how DOS attacks can bring down even high-profile
websites, often with relatively little technical expertise on
behalf of the attackers. Such attacks are nothing new to online
journalists across the world, however. Just this year, CPJ has
dealt with cases of independent news sites being taken offline by
remote Internet attacks in
China,
Burma,
Vietnam,
Russia,
Kazakhstan, and now
Belarus.

The Berkman Center's report details over three hundred other
cases from 1998 onwards, from Sweden to North Korea. More important, the researchers
interviewed the victims of these attacks, and categorized what
defenses were practical and effective -- and what did not work.

If you're an online journalist with powerful opponents, I'd
strongly encourage you to read this document and pass it along to
your tech-savvy associates. Even a small amount of preparation can
help keep vital news and opinion available online when you -- and
your readers -- most need it.

December 21, 2010 3:31 PM ET

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This week, CPJ published its year-end analysis of
work-related fatalities among journalists. Six of the 42 victims worked online.
While you can read the full statistics and our special report elsewhere, I want to highlight
the stories of these six journalists who worked on the Web.

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New York, December
17, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists joins with Indonesian
journalist groups in calling for a full and vigorous investigation into the
death of an editor on Kisar, one of the eastern Maluku Islands.Alfrets
Mirulewan, chief editor of the Pelangi
Weekly, was found with bruises on much of his body at 3 a.m. today,
according to Indonesian media reports. He had been missing since Tuesday night.

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On Wednesday, we identified Pakistan
as the country where the most journalists--eight--have been killed for their
work in the past year. Six of them were on the job when they were killed in
crossfire or a suicide bombing. Two others were assassinated.

I've been posting reports on one journalist--Umar Cheema--who wasn't killed, but whose case represents the other ugly reality, that the killings and abductions of journalists go uninvestigated in Pakistan. We rank Pakistan as 10th worst in the world when it comes to investigating journalists' deaths. The other pieces on Cheema can be found here.

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Although China
continues to censor
references to imprisoned writer Liu Xiaobo's Nobel peace prize in the news and
online, some have been finding creative ways to express support for him. An
outspoken newspaper published a front-page picture featuring empty chairs on
Sunday, in what appears to be a covert reference to the seat left vacant for
Liu during Friday's ceremony in Oslo.

At least 42 journalists are killed in 2010
as two trends emerge. Suicide attacks and violent street protests cause an
unusually high proportion of deaths. And online journalists are increasingly prominent
among the victims. A CPJ special report

As CPJ reports today, eight of the 42 journalists killed
this year were on the job in Pakistan. It's accurate to say the Pakistani victims
were like most journalists killed worldwide: They were local journalists
covering stories in their communities. But with Pakistan's political and
sectarian unrest aggravated by a decade-long war in neighboring Afghanistan, these
journalists are covering a local story of global significance.